


The Morning After

by tintenklex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, Embedded Image, Fanart, Friendship, Full Moon, Gen, Marauders, One Shot, Shrieking Shack, Werewolf Transformation, animagi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13998567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tintenklex/pseuds/tintenklex
Summary: After dark. Before dawn.It's the blue hour and a young man feels betwixt and between.





	The Morning After

Suddenly, it was all over.

After a night full of shadows, full of sounds – neither human nor animal, stupendous perversion of nature – it was morning. Dim and dismal. That indistinct time between dawn and sunrise. That timeless time, when it is night no more, still not day yet.

The time in between was the time when the wolf left him. He would disappear for one month, only to burst forth anew as soon as the moon bloomed again in all her glory.

His animal self got weaker with the decrease of darkness. The less the sky resembled an ocean of ink, the more it was brushed with gentle streaks of careful blue, the higher was his need to withdraw and curl up in a corner. By the first shy beam of sunlight that felt its way over the horizon, the wolf was gone. Instead, there lay a young man, sprawled out and lost, on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

The big black dog regarded him calmly. With a barely audible “swoosh” he and his other two companions transformed back into the young men they were. The one that had originated of the dog – his hair as black as the fur of his animagus – regarded his friend on the floor with concern. With a silent nod, he motioned his two friends to help him and place the lifeless boy on the old bed in the corner of the room.

Their first full moon together had only been one month ago. Back then, Remus had asked them to stay in the next room while he was transforming. He had wanted to spare them the sight – and also hadn't felt ready to share this intimate moment yet.

This terribly intimate moment. When his bones fractured and rearranged, when his skin cracked and patches of fur emerged, he felt devastatingly vulnerable and exposed.

That last time, Remus had pressed them to return to the castle immediately after he transformed back to a human, no matter his condition. Mme Pomfrey mustn't – under any circumstances – meet them; for what they did broke Wizarding Law in so many fashions, he didn't even want to know how many. And the last thing Remus wanted was to get his friends into trouble because of his – well, his situation.

Sirius had left with a bad feeling at that time. He'd had a hard time leaving their friend just like that. They had cast a blanket over Remus quickly before huddling away under the Invisibility Cloak, but still, it hadn't felt right.

Now, Sirius fumbled around anxiously with a blanket in his hand, before he spread it gently over his motionless friend. James and Peter had gone searching the Shack for traces and making sure they wouldn't leave any. No one must know there had been more than one living thing here tonight. The sound of his fellas grew distant while Sirius kneeled next to the bed Remus lay on. A strand of hair had strayed into the crook of his friends nose, and Sirius brushed it aside carefully. He wondered what Remus felt at the moment. If he felt anything at all. Or if the exhaustion of two transformations in less than eight hours had worn him out so terribly that he was buried in the dark pits of unconsciousness. Did he dream? Of last night, maybe, when none of them had been themselves? Did he remember? How the dog and the wolf had smelled each other, sniffled at each other, taking in their scent. Coming to that simple understanding, that sort of intuitive insight: We know each other. We, both hybrids. Neither human nor animal.

The animagus transformation was still new for him. He still figured things out, tried to get to know this strange stadium of neither-or. When he was Dog, he acted more intuitively, more sensual. He followed smells and noises, he moved instinctively towards any interesting source that his senses made him aware of. But a part of him remained. He was still Sirius, and Remus was still Remus, only that at the same time, they weren't.

Sure – Remus' transformation was, opposite to theirs, still the greater burden. Not only physically: His condition was tied to shame and contempt. But still, they had found a way to be as close to their friend as possible while he became what he never wanted to become.

As secret hybrids, they had entered the strange state in between that Remus got into when being a wolf. As thus, they could be with him. They had found a form in which they could stay with the wolf without him being dangerous to them or to himself. They had broken the curse that compelled Remus into solitude and misery during the full, and for that, Sirius was forever grateful.

„Oi Sirius, get a move on!“

The voice of James shook Sirius out of his thoughts. Seconds later, James' mop (as they used to call his unruly, off-standing hair) appeared in the doorframe.

„Poppy's gonna be here any minute, and I don't actually fancy running into her“, his friend remarked with an ironic smile. Then, he hesitated a moment and took in the room.

The picture on the wall had two deep gashes in it, the parchment hanging off it in streaks. The shelf on the wall was broken, with a lose board lying next to it. All in all, the room looked as if a mob of poltergeists had partied excessively in it during the night.

„Bloody brilliant“, James whispered with a dreamy smile on his face. „Best idea we've ever had, don't you think?“

And Sirius couldn't agree more.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading :)!  
> This is my first fanfic and - alas - I am not an english native. So - if you have any feedback in general or corrections concerning grammar, lines that "sound strange" etc. - go ahead :)! I'm looking forward to it!


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